There are a lot of things Brandywine Heights coach Mike Pienta can teach his girls volleyball players.

But Merion Mercy exploited the things that were even beyond Pienta's coaching ability in sweeping the Bullets 3-0 (25-6, 25-20, 25-16) in the PIAA-AA championship match Saturday at Central York High School.

The Bullets (27-1) were confident going into their first state title match since 2006 and were looking for their first gold medals since winning Class AA in 2002.

They went into the match unbeaten and had the experience of playing Merion Mercy in an invitational tournament during the regular season.

But the Golden Bears and their coach, Rich Johnson, learned a few things about the Bullets.

"When you have a team that is tall and that athletic, then they can hit the ball over our shorter people," Pienta said. "In each of the three rotations we have up front, I have one tall girl and they have three tall girls. Depending on where they are located in front of the net, I would do the same thing if I were them. That's the way this game is played."

The Golden Bears (39-4) were the two-time defending Class AA champions. They were on their way to making it a threepeat after dominating the first game and breaking out to a 10-4 lead in the second game before holding off a late comeback.

Merion Mercy slowly wore the Bullets down in the third game to win another championship trophy.

"I can't make our girls jump any higher or be able to block both sides of the court," Pienta said. "We were trying to double block on their middle hitter. That's something we don't do a whole lot. When we did that, it was tipping things to our right side. I think our girls played really well."

Middle hitter Alex Brehony had 12 kills and four blocks for the Bullets; outside hitter Chynna Gehman had seven kills and 11 digs. Setter Kaitlyn Schmeck had 31 assists, two kills and four digs.

After that, Johnson had an idea of what he wanted his team to do against the Bullets.

"We were passing well and our middle attack was unstoppable," Johnson said. "In the first two games where they didn't double block us, we had our way. When thay started to double block, we started to move it around. We played them before so we knew what they were going to do. Their offense isn't real fast, so it gave us more time."

Brandywine Heights got to the final by beating Archbishop Carroll in the semifinals 3-1 (25-20, 25-17, 19-25, 25-21).

Brehony had 23 kills, five blocks and two digs; Gehman had 10 digs, nine kills and two aces. Schmeck had 46 assists and 10 digs.

The Bullets ended the season having won the Berks County and District 3-AA championships.